Covid-19 News/Discussion

[pwny]

On 6/10/2021 at 8:51 AM, vikesfan89 said:

I agree except I thought half the country wasn't doing much to stop the spread of covid

50% of people not using masks still results in a 60+% drop in airborne disease spread. Not to mention the further drop from social distancing, canceling of large scale events, and all the other practices put in place.

 

Here, have some fun with the numbers. https://aatishb.com/maskmath/

[Glen]

17 hours ago, Uncle Buck said:

As far as "adults" are concerned, I'm quite certain that I am older than you are.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

48 minutes ago, pwny said:

50% of people not using masks still results in a 60+% drop in airborne disease spread. Not to mention the further drop from social distancing, canceling of large scale events, and all the other practices put in place.

 

Here, have some fun with the numbers. https://aatishb.com/maskmath/

Are we not allowed to “just ask questions” any longer?

Sheesh…

Better hope your millennial website is right.  None of that common core math.

[BayRaider]

3 hours ago, Xenos said:

I haven’t followed it at all. I only remember reading that it uses a similar approach as the flu and HPV vaccines.

Obviously this was the big news today.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/06/14/1006094476/novavax-says-its-covid-vaccine-is-extremely-effective-efficacy

I already knew it was the most effective. However, until they address Salk Institute’s research with a good counter-explanation, I’m going to be weary of it. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

21 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Are we not allowed to “just ask questions” any longer?

Are we all just having fun with aggressive use of quotes now? Because I've got 2 words for this thread: "Jaguars fan"

[Xenos]

29 minutes ago, BayRaider said:

I already knew it was the most effective. However, until they address Salk Institute’s research with a good counter-explanation, I’m going to be weary of it. 

This is what I could find though it only talks about the mRNA vaccines.

https://factcheck.afp.com/posts-misrepresent-us-study-dangers-coronavirus-spike-protein
 

Quote

The misleading posts misrepresent the implications of the study for the safety of Covid-19 vaccines.

The Salk Institute's study concluded that Covid-19 vaccines are an effective and safe way to protect people from the virus.

The study’s last sentence says that when someone receives a Covid-19 vaccine, it “not only protects the host from SARS-CoV-2 but also inhibits [spike protein] imposed endothelial injury”. 

A Salk Institute spokesperson told AFP the spike proteins in Covid-19 vaccines are safe because they only remain in a person's arm muscle for a short period.

"The spike protein in the coronavirus behaves differently from the spike protein in vaccines”, the spokesperson said. 

 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

12 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Are we all just having fun with aggressive use of quotes now? Because I've got 2 words for this thread: "Jaguars fan"

😂 

[BayRaider]

Just now, Xenos said:

This is what I could find though it only talks about the mRNA vaccines.

https://factcheck.afp.com/posts-misrepresent-us-study-dangers-coronavirus-spike-protein
 

 

I think I know the exact tweet you found that in lol. My brother was weary of NovaVax as well (he got Moderna first day and supports both those vaccines from day one) due to Salk’s research. I sent him that link a week ago and he said “Uhhh this has nothing to do with NovaVax and their method”. 
 

He is big on places like Salk, Scripps, University of San Diego, since he lives out there and works in a lab. Salk is very respected. 
 

However, this doesn’t mean NovaVax or someone else can’t come out with a logical explanation that puts everyone at ease. So far though, that hasn’t happened. 
 

You also wouldn’t really see what Salk is talking about in trials, it would be more long term vascular effects. 
 

 

[pwny]

19 minutes ago, BayRaider said:

I think I know the exact tweet you found that in lol. My brother was weary of NovaVax as well (he got Moderna first day and supports both those vaccines from day one) due to Salk’s research. I sent him that link a week ago and he said “Uhhh this has nothing to do with NovaVax and their method”. 
 

He is big on places like Salk, Scripps, University of San Diego, since he lives out there and works in a lab. Salk is very respected. 
 

However, this doesn’t mean NovaVax or someone else can’t come out with a logical explanation that puts everyone at ease. So far though, that hasn’t happened. 
 

You also wouldn’t really see what Salk is talking about in trials, it would be more long term vascular effects. 

The big thing about the Salk research is that it’s theoretical. They injected hamsters with an unknown amount of the spike protein. We really have no idea about the viral load required to hit that threshold, nor if it even translates to human patients. Further research is going to have to be done to test those limits to see if they even apply. The study is also being a bit misappropriated because it wasn’t testing the conclusion people are coming to out of this, but rather it solely looks at cellular mechanisms of how viral spike protein works, not the immune response from a vaccine. it’s incredibly likely that they pushed massive viral loads that one wouldn’t even see in a full blown infection when testing, so they could better understand how the virus works.

There’s reason to be cautious, given Novavax uses an altered version of the spike protein, but I do want to clarify that it should be *caution due to lack of data*, and not *worry because of data*. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

1 hour ago, pwny said:

The big thing about the Salk research is that it’s theoretical. They injected hamsters with an unknown amount of the spike protein. We really have no idea about the viral load required to hit that threshold, nor if it even translates to human patients.

It won't be within the same order of magnitude. 

1 hour ago, pwny said:

There’s reason to be cautious, given Novavax uses an altered version of the spike protein, but I do want to clarify that it should be *caution due to lack of data*, and not *worry because of data*. 

Also, this is how vaccines have worked for a while. You make something that looks exactly like the thing you want to immunize. That's how we vaccinate smallpox, as a historic example. The shiny new mRNA vaccines not needing even the intact viral particle is new, but that doesn't make these vaccines worse.

[pwny]

43 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

It won't be within the same order of magnitude. 

Also, this is how vaccines have worked for a while. You make something that looks exactly like the thing you want to immunize. That's how we vaccinate smallpox, as a historic example. The shiny new mRNA vaccines not needing even the intact viral particle is new, but that doesn't make these vaccines worse.

I almost posted something about the artificial sweetener tests with with mice, where mice where given the equivalent of 1,000 cans of diet sodas worth of aspartame every day and how finding out that has negative health outcomes in rodents doesn’t mean that a can of Diet Coke a day is going to do bad things to you. 
 

Yeah, like @Xenos posted earlier, this is a similar mechanism to that of the flu and HPV vaccines as well. But my understanding is that the Salk research showed that the spike protein, independent of the virus, cased issues in the [likely massive] viral load administered, caused poor health outcomes for the rodents. Would that not mean there’s a potential for [assuming one met the viral load requirement, which you and I both understand as likely massive beyond any reasonable vaccine dose], that the altered spike protein could possibly facilitate the same issues by traveling the same pathways?

[ramssuperbowl99]

20 minutes ago, pwny said:

I almost posted something about the artificial sweetener tests with with mice, where mice where given the equivalent of 1,000 cans of diet sodas worth of aspartame every day and how finding out that has negative health outcomes in rodents doesn’t mean that a can of Diet Coke a day is going to bad things to you. 

It's really an incomplete understanding of the drug development process. At the end of the day, our goal is human lives above everything else, and that includes animal lives. As counter-intuitive as that may seem, toxicology in other species can often be a good thing. Most drugs share common targets across species, and so seeing how the body begins to break down at high doses in one species gives us invaluable information about what targets to watch for in another species. That's not as important as the window of dose ranges, but regulators will 100% prefer a preclinical program with target-related toxicity to no target-related tox at any dose level. I've seen people go back and add extra phases to their programs because they weren't seeing anything. 

Yet, the average person will read this and go "oh no, if it's toxic it must be bad". 

EDIT: The best analogy I can think of at the moment is that it's kind of like looking at a car crash safety test in a commercial and thinking "well I don't want a car if it could crumple".

Edited June 14, 2021 by ramssuperbowl99

[pwny]

16 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

It's really an incomplete understanding of the drug development process. At the end of the day, our goal is human lives above everything else, and that means animal lives. As counter-intuitive as that may seem, toxicology in other species can often be a good thing. Most drugs share common targets across species, and so seeing how the body begins to break down at high doses in one species gives us invaluable information about what targets to watch for in another species. That's not as important as the window of dose ranges, but regulators will 100% prefer a preclinical program with target-related toxicity to no target-related tox at any dose level. I've seen people go back and add extra phases to their programs because they weren't seeing anything. 

Yet, the average person will read this and go "oh no, if it's toxic it must be bad". 

I mean to me, that seems pretty logical, and seemed pretty easy to follow why it goes that way. You can look at stuff like lead in paints and how that can cause brain developmental issues in children that don’t show up in noticeable ways for years, after loads of damage has been done, or how cancer can onset decades after exposure to asbestos. It sure makes sense to know whether or not we need to prepare for organ failure or cancer as a long term complication of COVID before we get hit with the massive influx of cases three years from now.

But stuff like the aspartame, and how people (particularly those like Dr. Bridle) are reacting to this study sure continues, along with everything else lately, to highlight the lack of scientific literacy out here in the world. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

1 minute ago, pwny said:

I mean to me, that seems pretty logical, and seemed pretty easy to follow why it goes that way. You can look at stuff like lead in paints and how that can cause brain developmental issues in children that don’t show up in noticeable ways for years, after loads of damage has been done. It sure makes sense to know whether or not we need to prepare for organ failure or cancer as a long term complication of COVID before we get hit with the massive influx of cases three years from now.

But stuff like the aspartame, and how people (particularly those like Dr. Bridle) are reacting to this study sure continues, along with everything else lately, to highlight the lack of scientific literacy out here in the world. 

Ha I constantly have to remind myself of it, so I'm glad it comes easy to somebody. Day to day, the natural human reaction is to be scared of the word "toxic", and we all train ourselves to think as real time as we can about how the data we get changes what we think about the drug, so it's a natural mistake to overinterpret. (We also design carcinogenicity studies in small animals to help answer those longer term questions without having a generation of kids raised on lead in the cereal, and only got to skip them for the vaccine since it's a single dose. Same for reproductive toxicity studies answering questions on safety with pregnant women.)

[vikesfan89]

47 minutes ago, pwny said:

50% of people not using masks still results in a 60+% drop in airborne disease spread. Not to mention the further drop from social distancing, canceling of large scale events, and all the other practices put in place.

 

Here, have some fun with the numbers. https://aatishb.com/maskmath/

I was under the impression that masks were more effective at stopping people from spreading the virus than they are at preventing people from getting the virus.  Shouldn't there be a scenario where an unmasked person sneezes towards a mask person or isthat what the 3rd one is saying?